Neural Correlates of Wakefulness, Sleep, and General Anesthesia: An Experimental Study in Rat

Abstract

Background:

Significant advances have been made in our understanding of subcortical processes related to anesthetic- and sleep-induced unconsciousness, but the associated changes in cortical connectivity and cortical neurochemistry have yet to be fully clarified.

Compared to wakefulness, anesthetic-induced unconsciousness was characterized by a significant decrease in cortical acetylcholine that recovered to preanesthesia levels during recovery wakefulness. Corticocortical coherence and frontal–parietal symbolic transfer entropy in high γ band (85 to 155 Hz) were decreased during anesthetic-induced unconsciousness and returned to preanesthesia levels during recovery wakefulness. Sleep-wake states showed a state-dependent change in coherence and transfer entropy in high γ bandwidth, which correlated with behavioral arousal: high during wakefulness, low during SWS, and lowest during REM sleep. By contrast, frontal–parietal θ connectivity during sleep-wake states was not correlated with behavioral arousal but showed an association with well-established changes in cortical acetylcholine: high during wakefulness and REM sleep and low during SWS.

Conclusions:

Corticocortical coherence and frontal–parietal connectivity in high γ bandwidth correlates with behavioral arousal and is not mediated by cholinergic mechanisms, while θ connectivity correlates with cortical acetylcholine levels.